CHAPTER 1
Valentine Nichols couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She rubbed her eyes, making sure it wasn’t just the dim lighting in the club that was responsible for this extraordinary sight. But no, there he was, plain as day. And yes, he really was doing what she thought he was doing.
Shane Daniels, her big brother’s oldest friend and the man who regularly starred in her most forbidden fantasies, was actually here at the Black and Blue, a nightclub that catered to the kinky in downtown Tampa. His shirt was off and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his muscular chest—a chest Valentine had felt under her cheek many times when he comforted her but had never gotten to see bare before. In fact, all he was wearing was a pair of tight black leather pants and boots to match. In his hand was a whip—no, that’s a flogger, Valentine thought, feeling slightly giddy at the sight. It had many long black leather tassels that would feel soft and sensuous when dragged lightly over bare skin but would sting like fire if it was wielded with a strong arm. Or so she had read and hoped to experience soon for herself.
Shane appeared to be wielding the flogger with both skill and strength—if the moans of the half-naked woman who was tied to the whipping post were any indication. Bass music was thumping through the converted dance floor that served as a platform for the punishment arena but Valentine could still hear her cries as Shane’s muscular arm rose and fell. She didn’t sound like she was in pain—more like she was about to come and she couldn’t help the sounds she was making. But it wasn’t the woman Valentine was interested in. She watched as Shane half turned his head, giving her a quick look at his face. There was an intent expression on his chiseled features and an intensity in his coal black eyes she’d never seen there before.
Hair that matched his eyes was skull-cut close to his scalp. How often had she fantasized about running her hands over that bristly black hair as he kissed her? So many she couldn’t even count. Only lately her secret desires had taken a sharp left turn. Even now she was imagining herself tied to the whipping post, taking the place of the woman whom Shane was punishing so expertly. Valentine could imagine the stinging kiss of those leather tassels, the sound of his deep, gravelly baritone telling her to hold still unless she wanted a worse punishment. Just thinking of it sent a shiver of delight down her spine and made her pussy damp with desire.
Up until this moment, she’d assumed there was no way to make her fantasies come true. Finding out that Shane was into her secret kink—deep into it by the look of things—put a whole new spin on the situation. This definitely required some thought.
Valentine kept watching as she mulled the situation over. She was standing behind a pillar, peering out at him and making sure she was out of his line of sight. God knew what Shane would do if he caught her here. He’d been her unofficial protector for years—ever since her big brother, Peter, had left for the Marines. Their parents had been killed in a plane crash when Valentine was seventeen and her brother was twenty-two. Peter and Shane had been inseparable in high school and college and when Peter took over as Valentine’s guardian, Shane had too—in an unofficial but very real sense.
Valentine was sure that Shane was the only reason her big brother had felt free to follow his heart and join the Marines. He knew she was safe with his best friend, the cop, watching out for her. And she was—sometimes too safe. Shane never approved of any of her boyfriends and he insisted on taking her to dinner or meeting for lunch at least once a week so he could keep tabs on her. In the past, Valentine had resented that but she’d never refused to meet with him—how could she when she’d been secretly in love with him since the first time Peter had brought him home?
Of course she knew all her fantasies were just that—fantasies. Shane was never going to lay a hand on her, no matter how pretty she was. And she didn’t do too badly for herself in the looks department. She was five foot nine with shoulder-length curly blonde hair and green eyes that had an exotic little tilt at the corners men found fascinating.
Despite her height she wasn’t fashion model skinny but Valentine was proud of her curves. And besides, she happened to know that Shane liked plus-sized women—at least when he dated anyone for any length of time, he did. Redheads, blondes, brunettes—he didn’t seem to have a preference but all the women he went out with did have one thing in common—they all had dress sizes in the double digits. Valentine had often thought that knowing Shane liked a woman with a little junk in the trunk had given her a better body image growing up. Why would she starve herself to be skinny when the man who was her masculine ideal loved women of size?
But now that she was about to be twenty-four, she had other concerns besides how she stacked up in the body department. And new desires that couldn’t be satiated by the same boring, tired old sexual routine she’d been familiar with since college.
Valentine couldn’t say when it was that her interest in discipline, domination and submission began but she knew exactly when it had taken off. She’d read a few books that sparked her interest in college and then pretty much forgotten about the whole thing until, about a year ago, she’d borrowed a DVD from a friend when she was bored and wanted something to watch. The movie had been about a secretary with secret submissive tendencies. She didn’t know about her feelings herself until she was hired by a dominating boss who punished her sexually and made her understand what she needed.
Valentine watched the entire movie, entranced, and knew that this was what she had been missing. No wonder sex seemed boring and blah and the same old, same old no matter who her partner was—she was doing it wrong. Or rather, it was being done to her wrong. What she needed was someone who was willing to explore her desire to submit as well as her desire to be punished. But finding someone who was ready, willing, and able to dive into the world of D/s with her turned out to be a lot harder than she’d imagined.
At first Valentine had turned to her then-current boyfriend, Gavin. He was a nice enough guy and since she’d resigned herself to never having a shot at Shane, she’d decided that he might even be the one. However, the minute she’d tried to introduce the tiniest kink into their bedroom, Gavin had been completely freaked out.
“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m afraid I’m hurting you,” he’d told her when Valentine complained that he wasn’t paddling her hard enough.
“That’s the idea,” she’d told him, thoroughly frustrated. “To hurt me—at least a little.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you,” he’d protested. “I want to love you. Can’t we just forget about this and do it the regular way?”
Unfortunately the regular way was missionary position in the dark and Valentine was so bored with it she could cry. She’d begged Gavin to try again but the results were pretty much the same—a halfhearted whipping that felt more like love taps than a genuine punishment. It didn’t do a thing to heat either Valentine’s bottom or her libido.
Though she had hoped he was just slow to warm up to the idea, it soon became apparent that her boyfriend was never going to make the perfect Dom of her dreams. Whenever he tried to spank or paddle her it was clear his interest was elsewhere and he didn’t like role-playing either, which was one of the things Valentine really wanted to get into. She loved to pretend she was someone else—the naughty nurse, the naughty schoolgirl—pretty much the naughty anything. But Gavin would always spoil it by asking why they had to act like they were other people. He said he loved Valentine just the way she was so why would she want to be anyone else?
It was all very sweet but extremely uninspiring. Valentine needed something more and she knew it. Finally when Gavin told her to choose—her new sexual interests or him—she’d decided to cut him loose and take the path into the dark. There was something big out there, something incredible and life changing and Valentine could feel it calling to her. She just needed a guide to show her the way—but to her mounting frustration, no guide seemed to be available.
Until now.
She watched as Shane finished flogging the tied submissive and stepped to one side. A man who was almost as tall as Shane stepped forward and helped untie the girl who had been whipped. He thanked Shane who nodded and said something that made the other man smile and nod back. Then he put an arm around the girl, who Valentine imagined must be his submissive, and gently led her away. Shane stretched out his whipping arm and took a deep breath.
Almost immediately another couple came forward, a female dominatrix and her male sub. But Shane was shaking his head. Either he was done for the night or he didn’t whip other males, only females. Valentine wondered which it was and then she wondered what it would feel like to be tied up and helpless for him, completely at his mercy.
Well, maybe it was time she found out.
Do I dare? she asked herself as he walked past her, only a foot away from the pillar she was hiding behind. The answer came at once—not tonight. But soon. Tomorrow night was their weekly dinner date and Shane was taking her to LeFronge as an early birthday present. She’d been born on Valentine’s Day—hence her not-too-creative name—and it was always a pain in the ass to go out on the actual day because of the crowds. So she’d gotten into the habit of going out the week before and then staying in on her actual birthday, which could really be more fun sometimes.
This year it could be a lot of fun but Valentine knew she would have to work up to it slowly. Silent as a shadow, she slipped from behind the thick pillar and headed for the exit of the Black and Blue.
She had a lot of planning to do.
Shane couldn’t figure her out. Valentine was looking beautiful tonight but that was nothing new. She’d had a heartbreakingly gorgeous face since he’d first met her and then she’d grown a curvy, plus-sized body to match. So the fact that she was positively mouthwatering as she sat across from him in a little black dress that looked like it had been painted on was no surprise. But there was something else about her—some inner radiance that he couldn’t figure out.
“Val, sweetheart, you all right?” he asked, reaching across the spindly little table to touch the hand not holding her spoon. She’d been quiet all night though several times she’d opened her mouth as if to say something and then shut it again. Shane hadn’t missed those moments of hesitation or the fact that their conversation was mostly one sided with him supplying almost all of it. “You have something on your mind?” he asked her.
“You could say that.” Valentine toyed with her spoon, licking a tiny bit of crème brûlée from the back of it with her dainty pink tongue.
